'Orientalism' by Edward W. Said

Early on in the book Said boils down his critic to that of ‘historical authority’ which in the case of Orientalism was that of ‘personal authority’ in regards to the east that nether the less became absolute fact. Said’s background in literary criticism thus focuses on primarily English and French writers, thinkers and journalist, from the time of Napoleon, through colonization and as within his introduction right up to the most recent Gulf War. For Said the style of these writers to saturate the reader with immense generalized information is what he describes as ‘without depth, in swollen detail’. From the beginning Said is clear in his purpose, do examine and critic the study of the ‘Orient’ within western literary culture, his survey is by no means an accurate representation of the Orient and by his study he does not give the east a voice as such but rather seeks to dismantle the whole concept of the ‘East’, and the ‘West’ for that matter; ‘this book has tried to demonstrate, Islam has been fundamentally misrepresented in the West—the real issue is whether indeed there can be a true representation of anything, or whether any and all representations, because they are representations, are embedded first in language and then in the culture, institutions, and political ambience of the representer.’

In the afterword Said responses to the criticism of his book and the many unfortunate misrepresentations of his work which in some circumstances was seen to deepen the divide between the ‘east’ and the ‘west’. Such interpretations are not only damaging but miss Said’s point entirely, to even use the words such words to describe places and people, as if there is a tangible line that separates the eastern part of the world from the western, is a fallacy. If nothing else Orientalism should be thought of as a fiction, something created and yes sometimes believed but like many other myths and legends from history we now study it for his culture value rather than its communication of objective historical facts.

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'My principle operating assumptions were—and continue to be—that fields of learning, as much as the works of even the most eccentric artist, are constrained and acted upon by society, by culture traditions, by worldly circumstances, and by stabilizing influences like schools, libraries, and governments; moreover, that both learned and imaginative writing are never free, but are limited in their imagery, assumption, and intentions; and finally, that the advances made by a “science” like Orientalism in its academic form are less objectively true that we often like to think. In short, my study hitherto has tried to describe the economy that makes Orientalism a coherent subject matter, even while allowing that as an idea, concept, or image that word Orient has a considerable and interesting cultural resonance in the West.’